In Kerala’s Thrissur constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and actor-politician Suresh Gopi is ahead by nearly 16,000 votes as per early trends at 10am, an indicator of the saffron party’s growing voter base there.
The results are proving to be a setback for the CPI’s VS Sunil Kumar as the first rounds of EVM votes were counted in areas considered to be strongholds of the Left. While Gopi polled over 76,000 votes, Kumar was behind with around 61,000 votes. Congress candidate K Muraleedharan is in third place with about 51,000 votes. It must be noted here that this seat has an incumbent Congress MP and is a party bastion.
Located in central Kerala, Thrissur is dominated by the Hindu community with about 45% vote share, but has a sizeable Christian voter base, estimated at around 30-35%. Of the Christian voters, a large majority are Catholics. In many ways, the Christian community has often enjoyed enough influence to tilt the electoral scales in the favour of a coalition.
When HT visited Thrissur during the campaign trail in April, it found that the ethnic violence in faraway Manipur had a deep impact on the Christian community and the Church and was one of the key talking points during the campaign. Gopi, during an interview with HT, was reluctant to talk about it and instead stressed that the Modi factor and the development initiatives in the last 10 years of the BJP were the backbone of the party’s campaign.
{{/usCountry}}When HT visited Thrissur during the campaign trail in April, it found that the ethnic violence in faraway Manipur had a deep impact on the Christian community and the Church and was one of the key talking points during the campaign. Gopi, during an interview with HT, was reluctant to talk about it and instead stressed that the Modi factor and the development initiatives in the last 10 years of the BJP were the backbone of the party’s campaign.
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